Once a party has received a judgment from a civil court case in Alberta, the next step is to try to collect the judgment from the other party.

While, of course, the simplest way to collect a judgment would be to dialogue with the other party and have them voluntarily forward the assigned funds to the owed party. Unfortunately, the process is often not so easy.

To collect your judgment, you must first file the judgment at Queen’s Bench, and then file a very specific document known as a Writ of Enforcement (Writ) – one should always prepare 5 copies of the Writ.

Next the Writ is registered at the Personal Property Registry (through a private registry).

Then the creditor has to assess the best way to collect the judgment, based on the assets of the debtor. The choices are garnishment of wages, garnishment of bank accounts, and seizure with a bailiff. If the debtor has land, the judgment should be filed against the debtor’s land at Land Titles.

The collection procedure is laborious, very specific, and has no guarantees of being successful. But Rainbow Investigations has successfully collected monies owed to clients from judgments involving landlord - tenant debts, damage to vehicles during detailing and other construction debts. Since 2008 Rainbow Investigations has collected over $330,000 in judgments for our clients.

Land titles caveats are amoung the most common way to tie up a debtor's assets until collection is completed. In one particularly interesting case, Rainbow Investigations is working with a current client to sell the property of the debtor over a large Queen's Bench judgment that has been registered on the debtor's property.

There are times where the debtor decides to “run” away from debts, or simply has no assets with which to satisfy the debts. But we can monitor the situation – judgments are valid for 10 years.

For small judgments where collection is a problem, we can give you the best chance of collecting. We have also been retained to facilitate payment schedules for people who have had a judgment against them. Most often, if someone is trying to collect, and a professional, such as ourselves, can work out a schedule based on the ability to pay, this will prevent any further enforcement action being taken by the owed party.